Although Sulley manages to get his seatbelt on easily, Mike finds his seatbelt stuck and accidentally locks himself out of the car while trying to unstick it. Mike tells Sulley to push a button, but confused by the massive amount of buttons on the dashboard; he pushes a button that opens the hood. When Mike goes over to close it, he is unable to reach it. Sulley helps him close the hood but accidentally closes on Mike's fingers, which causes Mike to scream in pain. Sulley helps Mike get free but ends up trapping him in the engine compartment.

Sulley opens the hood, Mike manages to escape, re-enters the car, and is exasperated by the continuous seatbelt reminder tone. Mike manages to put his seat-belt on, but the windshield wipers get turned on, much to his frustration. As Sulley tries to help, Mike tells him not to touch anything and decides to do it himself. Mike pushes a button that launches the entire car into chaotic malfunction, including Latin conga music playing loudly on the car's stereo system.

Mike finally ends the chaos by pulling the key out of the ignition, but then Sulley adds insult to injury by accidentally breaking the rearview mirror in an attempt to realign it. Mike gets angry, forces Sulley out of the car, and speeds away, wrecking the car completely. Sulley mutters, "Huh, that's weird, the airbag didn't go off." Right on cue, the airbag inflates, and its force sends Mike flying back up the street. Sulley catches Mike, who mourns for his old car before agreeing to walk to work while the credits roll.

Mike's New Car was released on September 17, 2002, attached as bonus feature on the Monsters, Inc. DVD and VHS release.[1] The DVD release features commentary by "Docter and Gould", which turn out to be the directors' young children.[citation needed] The short was also released on November 10, 2009, on the Monsters, Inc. Blu-ray.[3]

Building Mike's New Car Co-director/creative director of shorts department Roger Gould and story artists Rob Gibbs and Jeff Pidgeon discuss how they followed up the CGI adventures of Mike and Sulley by Building Mike's New Car.